Missing Our Beautiful Girl, Cleo

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Cleo. I rescued her in 1995 and she had been with us for the past 27 years; she was 31 years old.

She had a horrible life early on. She broke down on the race track and was later sent to a testing facility where she was treated very poorly. I rescued her from there before she ended up going to slaughter. She had a lot of trust issues and many times I was the only one who could catch her. She was very smart and lived life on her terms. Earning her trust was an accomplishment.

Cleo had been healthy until a bout of Anaplasma made her very ill. She had a fever over 104 and despite treatment she developed neurological symptoms to the point she became unbalanced and wasn’t eating. We had no choice but to have her humanely euthanized.

Cleo was always high strung and could frequently be seen galloping up from her lower field rearing and bucking. She always nickered to me because she knew I usually had a horse cookie in my pocket for her. She lived out and was free, she did not like the barn.

She will be greatly missed, but she is truly one of the lucky ones.

Run free, Cleo!